Yerevan is trying to bury memory of Sumgait, says former Artsakh  official

ArmInfo. The authorities who came to power in Armenia under the slogans of peace and democracy are gradually narrowing the space of memory, including that of the Sumgait pogroms of Armenians. This was stated by NKR statesman and former Artsakh Minister of Culture, Youth, and Tourism Sergey  Shahverdyan.

In connection with the 38th anniversary of the Sumgait pogroms of  Armenians, the former Artsakh official stated that in nearly forty  years, virtually everything has been said about Sumgait. According to  him, February 1988 is forever etched in history as the first systemic  explosion of hatred, marking the beginning of the bloody unraveling  of the Karabakh knot. Shahverdyan recalled the three days in the  Azerbaijani city when Armenians were rounded up from their apartments  and entryways, tortured, raped, and killed simply because they were  Armenian. So many documents, photographs, witness statements, and  names of executioners have been collected that they would be enough  for a multi-volume investigation. And just a few years ago, it seemed  the world had learned its lesson. "Sumgait" has become not just a  place name, but a symbol-a harbinger of a new wave of genocide.

But the reality of today's Armenia is a sobering slap in the face. It  turns out that crimes can not only be denied at the level of enemy  propaganda-they can be consigned to oblivion quietly, methodically,  and from within one's own country. While Ilham Aliyev pompously  unveils monuments to the "victims of Khojaly" and once again dons the  mantle of defender of justice, something previously unthinkable is  happening in Yerevan. The authorities, who came to power under the  slogans of peace and democracy, are gradually narrowing the space of  memory. Discussions about the events of the late 1980s and early  1990s, not to mention the more recent crimes of Baku, "They are being  reduced to a minimum. Study? Forget it.  Public discussions? Only if  they're in the format of 'let's not reopen the past.' In this new  'real Armenia,' the past is becoming a toxic burden that we're  supposed to get rid of for the sake of a brighter future,"  Shahverdyan stated.

At the same time, the former Artsakh official believes that Sumgait  occupies a special place on this list of those to be destroyed. "Why?  Because this human-made crime is so obvious that it's difficult to  hush up.  Sumgait fits perfectly into the UN Genocide Convention on  at least three counts: people were killed solely on the basis of  their ethnicity; they suffered grievous physical and mental trauma;  and finally, conditions were created that made returning to the city  impossible-the 18,000 refugees became living proof of ethnic  cleansing," he noted.

According to him, it's important to understand the scale of the  cynicism: these crimes weren't a spontaneous mob riot. It was a  planned action, where city leaders protested, the police either did  nothing or participated, and Baku, a half-hour drive away, "noticed  nothing" for three days. "Security services, coordination, covering  up traces-all indicate that we are dealing with a state policy of  extermination. But if Armenophobia was and remains an ideological  foundation for Baku, then for the current Armenian leadership,  oblivion is becoming the foundation. And this is no longer just  inertia, but a deliberate course.  Of course, on February 26, we saw  the usual social media post from officials. Two lines, a candle in a  story, a sigh about how 'peace is important.' The word 'genocide'  will not be uttered. The name of the perpetrator country will also  not be mentioned. Everything will be reduced to an abstract  'tragedy', so as not to offend anyone. Meanwhile, 'peace activists,'  with a surprising chorus calling for 'not delving into the past,'  will happily report on building bridges. Those very bridges that  executioners can comfortably cross without fear of being called  executioners," he noted.

Shahverdyan added that the outcome of this policy is terrifying in  its simplicity: Armenian society is moving toward a world where  Aghdam will be called "genocide" on international platforms, while  Sumgait, Baku, Maragha, the murder in Budapest, the atrocities of the  April War, and the exodus of the Artsakh people in 2023 will be  erased. "Just as the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide of the  early 20th century erased it, so too did those who perpetrated it.  But if it was the enemies who erased it back then, now it's their own  people who have taken up the eraser. Nikol Pashinyan and his team,  fulfilling a geopolitical imperative, are persistently shaping a 'new  mentality.' An Armenia without pain, without heroes, and without  martyrs. An ideal victim who has forgotten they were killed and is  therefore ready to be finished off.

There is a terrible truth, carved into international law: denial and  oblivion of genocide are its direct continuation. And today we are  witnessing this process firsthand. Only now, denial and oblivion are  not coming from Ankara or Baku. They are coming from Yerevan. And  this is perhaps the most bitter thing that can be stated 38 years  after the Sumgait hell," Shahverdyan concluded.

On February 20, 1988, an extraordinary session of the regional  council of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast resolved to appeal  to the Supreme Soviets of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR to  secede from Azerbaijan and join Soviet Armenia, and to petition the  Supreme Soviet of the USSR for a positive resolution. A few days  later, Azerbaijan "reacted" to this decision in the city of Sumgait,  a symbol of the Soviet Union's internationalism. The right of Artsakh  Armenians to self-determination and to a safe and dignified life in  their homeland was being challenged by pogroms and violence committed  on ethnic grounds.

On February 26, anti-Armenian demonstrations began in Sumgait, with  slogans such as "Death to Armenians" and "Armenians, leave." To  incite hatred against Armenians, special provocateurs posing as  refugees from Kapan began operating in Sumgait, spreading false  rumors about alleged crimes against Azerbaijanis in Armenia.

On the evening of February 27, violent actions against the city's  Armenian population began. Special pogrom groups broke into Armenian  homes based on a pre-prepared list. During the massacres, telephones  in many Armenian homes were disconnected, and the police demonstrated  criminal inaction, or, according to some accounts, even complicity.  The methods of carrying out the massacres were characterized by  inhuman cruelty. The Armenian population was exterminated, killed,  beaten, tortured, set on fire, raped, and physically and  psychologically harmed. On the evening of February 28, Soviet Army  units entered Sumgait, initially under orders to use force and  weapons against the pogromists. As a result, the Azerbaijani side  attacked Soviet military units, resulting in 140 Soviet soldiers  being wounded. Only on the evening of February 29 did army units take  decisive action, and the massacre of Armenians ceased.

According to official figures, 32 people (26 Armenians, 6  Azerbaijanis) were killed in the Sumgait pogroms, over 400 people  suffered varying degrees of bodily injury, approximately 200  apartments and over 50 cultural buildings were attacked and looted,  and over 100 vehicles were damaged. The organized trial of the  Sumgait pogroms and its "impartiality" left a number of questions  unanswered, one of which is the veracity of the number of victims and  wounded. There are reports and data on the number of victims and  wounded that contradict the official figures.

The Sumgait pogroms caused a great stir in the Armenian community,  primarily associating these events with the Armenian Genocide  committed in the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. The  pogroms against the Armenian population were genocidal in nature and  their goal was to halt the development of the Artsakh movement and  suppress the right of Artsakh Armenians to self-determination.

The Sumgait pogroms of 1988-1990 were the first in a chain of mass  and large-scale crimes against Armenians in the Azerbaijan SSR. The  central authorities failed to adequately assess the mass killings of  the Armenian population of Sumgait, portraying them as the actions of  "hooligan elements" and mass unrest. This was officially reflected in  the trial of the Sumgait pogromists, resulting in the failure to  identify and punish the perpetrators of the pogroms. This attitude  toward Armenian-Azerbaijani interethnic violence and the resulting  impunity played a significant role in the further expansion and  continuation of anti- Armenian violence in Azerbaijan. Modern  Azerbaijan continues the anti-Armenian policy of Soviet Azerbaijan.

The most recent such manifestation was the attack on Artsakh and its  complete de-Armenization in September 2023. This was preceded by a  10-month blockade of the NKR. As a result of the Azerbaijani  aggression against Artsakh in 2020-2023, more than 150 thousand  Artsakh residents were left without a home and homeland.